River Watchers gather and disperse seeds of native local ecotype grasses

October 23 – 30, 2012:     Students from three different River Watch groups gathered seeds of native local ecotype grasses.  They dispersed some of the seeds and saved some for a future dispersal date.  The grass species they gathered included mostly Wild Rye and Inland Sea Oats – two very well adapted shade-tolerant grasses for our area of Central Texas.  Students dispersed some of the seed under the Montopolis Bridge, one of our regular monitoring sites.  This location is not fully ecologically functional.  It has a lot bare, hard ground, where people used to drive their vehicles under the bridge.  Now there is a parking area so people don’t drive down to the water’s edge anymore, but the damage was done here. Even the bermuda grass has a hard time growing here – and that’s unusual.  The remainder of the seed is being saved for a future dispersal date either at the same site of at another of the River Watch monitoring locations in the Greater Austin Area.